The Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Vince Williams is asking for a contract termination with his outburst on Twitter, where he wrote “If you burned your s**t, don’t buy it back #BandwagonClosed.” At the time of this writing it has over 1,700 retweets.

The boycott of Steelers merchandise that began in September has been hurting the third party retailers, with one store in Lancaster called Steel City Sports having to balance their customers and their wishes to keep politics out of their store. While their Penguins and Pirates merchandise is still selling, Steelers sales are way down.

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The boycott was in retaliation to a Week 3 incident where, before playing against the Bears, every team member stayed in their locker room during the National Anthem except for their offensive tackle Alejandro Villanueva. Villanueva eventually apologized for causing further controversy. When it became wider news that he was the only one to stand for the anthem before that Bears game, it became national news that Villanueva spent three tours in Afghanistan as an Army Ranger.

Their Coach Mike Tomlin was furious with Villanueva. But, due to his actions, his jersey became one of the best selling in the entire NFL league within hours of his display of pride.

With fans taking to social media to burn their Steelers merchandise and jerseys, Vincenzo Williams wants to say good riddance. But, in Week 4, the entire team stood for the anthem. Maybe Williams hasn’t gotten the memo, but I think even Coach Tomlin thinks it’s over the line to straight up insult fans by telling them to get off the bandwagon. Not out of any moral authority, but because nobody in their right minds who relies on the support of their fans for their entire career should be out there insulting the fans.

Things have been so rough for the Steelers public image that their owner, Art Rooney II, had to send a letter to the fan base, saying that he believed there has been a “misperception” about the intentions of the players who decided to sit out the anthem.

“The intentions of Steelers players were to stay out of the business of making political statements by not taking the field. Unfortunately, that was interpreted as a boycott of the anthem – which was never our players’ intention.”

Another non-apology. Unless you use simple words in your apology or explanation it doesn’t count… I know you’re bending over backwards to use as many convoluted definitions as possible to cover your butt for your left-wing friends while attempting to placate those stupid conservatives who don’t know how to use a dictionary.